Treasure Troves for the Imagination

Browne is both storyteller and illustrator; his books offer particular rewards for those who are really looking. 'Noticing things is important,' he says 'and that we really, really down-value.'

His pages are treasure troves for the imagination. They echo the visually creative world of children and dreamers where patterns on wallpaper, shapes in the grass, shadowy views through windows or the gnarled branches of trees can reveal hidden creatures, symbols and fears.

Browne's world is a place where things are not as they might at first seem. These are environments in which bananas become fishes (Willy the Dreamer); passing clouds form horns on an angry father's head (Zoo); a scream on the face of a shadow reveals the hidden fear of a timid boy at the top of a long slide (Voices in the Park).

And it would seem that experiencing the world in these ways can bring about a resolution of the needs and fears of the child heroes (and thereby of the readers, too).

Like the Surrealist art that has inspired him, the details that enrich Browne's pictures are archetypal symbols of our unconscious, suggestive of meaning rather than prescriptive of it. But the ideas that they stir up in the reader's mind, he insists, are created by the artistic process, not worked out consciously in advance.

'Sometimes I can look back and talk about it as though I planned it. I didn't really. I was doing the pictures instinctively in relation to the story and the feelings and what I intended to express.'

'Sometimes I can look back and talk about it as though I planned it. I didn't really. I was doing the pictures instinctively in relation to the story and the feelings and what I intended to express. But I wasn't consciously thinking about it. I can look back now and think "yes" that's why I painted X. At the time it was just expressing … just making a painting, really.'

On one level Anthony Browne's territory is the truth of one sort of family life: there are lonely, bored, or anxious children; dads who play the bumptious paterfamilias or may be emotionally absent; and mums who tend to take a back seat.

But set alongside such commonplace tensions there is something altogether more unusual going on: playful textual subversions, myriad symbolic details, and startlingly incongruous images. As he says, 'Different layers is something that's always interested me. So that something can seem just funny and light but actually is much more dark and serious; or possibly the other way around.'

There is a strong sense of his own family life running throughout Browne's work, and he admits that he draws considerably on autobiographical detail. 'A huge amount - but not always in an obvious way,' he says.

He acknowledges that he has often portrayed his fathers in a critical light, but his mothers, too, have had a hard time: the taken-for-granted mum in Piggybook, the snobbish mum in Voices in the Park, the miserable mum in Zoo. But he only says 'I think I have different kinds of mothers in different books. I'd like to think that.'

'Maybe I don't stand back and look at the characters I've created or the situations and think "What does this mean?" And in a way I'm wary of standing back too much. It feels a bit like the academic equivalent of looking at the market. In a way it's best for me just to let these stories come and to deal with them how I can.'

My Dad, published in 2000, was a simple and loving portrayal of his own father, broadened out into a generic tribute to all fathers. The book celebrates a father's strength, wisdom, imagination, skill, sportsmanship, humour and love with single page by page statements such as 'He can wrestle with giants, or win the fathers' race on sports day, easily'.

The full-page illustrations with short perspectives show the actual dad or the dad transformed into other creatures - 'My dad can eat like a horse and he can swim like a fish' – but always dressed in his trademark checked dressing gown.

Unsurprisingly, Browne's new book, My Mum, has been expected for some time. It is in similar style and forms the companion volume to My Dad. This mum is characterised largely by her practical, domestic abilities and, one imagines, her ability to cope with young children, as well as by her love.

Browne says it was awkward to produce a book that was, in part at least, about his own, deceased mother 'It was a very difficult book… To a certain extent, mothers of that generation were encouraged to just be mothers. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but it's very limiting.'

Clearly his wish to be true to the mother he had, whilst at the same time creating a generic tribute to mothers of today, was a hard thing to balance, but he has done so by imagining what this mum could be: 'a dancer, or an astronaut … a film star, or the big boss.' Yet this is a slightly stark book, emotionally and visually – there is more white space than in My Dad - but the message that mums are there to love and be loved will make this a feel-good book to share and, like My Dad, should provoke interesting talk with children about roles, hobbies and talents.

Browne has created over 30 books, translated into numerous languages. Many of his illustrations are fine works of art. Using watercolour, watercolour pencils and occasionally gouache, they employ effects of lighting to create atmosphere, perspective to direct our attention, and colour to express mood. Reticent he may be about theorising, categorising, personalising or pinning down meaning, but the connections are there for the making – and, like Hans Christian Andersen, his are stories that live on in the mind of the reader.